More Smutty Than You: TSR's Hall of Shame

[Beth]

Points taken HL and Dee, and they're valid because HL is a parent and Dee has proven that she knows what she's talking about, plus I'm telling myself that no doubt other parents would probably come forward and probably have somewhat the same points.

I guess I'm just overly overprotective. (Here we go), I didn;t have the safest of childhoods, was shown a lot of stuff and had to grow up much quicker than normal children, so I guess it's probably why I'd wanna wrap my kids up in cotton wool.

God help them

[heartless]

i would've been disturbed by it when i was 12, but i was also a former homeschooler who wasn't even allowed to watch looney tunes for the longest time. go figure.
more tacky slutwear!

[Tabby]

I guess I'm just overly overprotective. (Here we go), I didn;t have the safest of childhoods, was shown a lot of stuff and had to grow up much quicker than normal children, so I guess it's probably why I'd wanna wrap my kids up in cotton wool.

God help them

 Same here, you will just be very cautious. I thought right up until my daughter was born I would wrap her up and keep her inside and away from people forever. You learn to let them live, while also watching everything they do. 

[Paden]

Oh yeah, anything seen in this house is cleared by me first. I know that will change as my son gets older,  but for now my word is law. This gives me a chance to instruct on what is correct behaviour and what isn't, what is safe and what isn't, and keep the gore off of my TV screen. I'm a great believer in letting a little kid be a little kid, sorry. Will I relax on it as he gets older? Most likely. Will I monitor what he does on the net and where he goes on the computer? You bet your life. Until he hits eighteen and moves out on his own, my word is law. My husband is smart, he backs me up.

[SoggyFox]

See, that's what parents should do - when I was a kid, while I was abused, the spankings were -not- abuse.  The month long restrictions were not abuse.  The keeping me from doing something stupid was not abuse.

Parents should control what their children do, instead of expecting others to do their jobs.

[dietofworms]

You try your best.  But even the most conscientious parents can't always control their children.  It's easier of course when they're younger, and I think it's right to shield them from the full force of what this shitty culture throws at us.  But having gone through my older son's adolescence (thank GOD that's over), I can say that no matter what you do short of an electronic bracelet, you can't even predict, much less curtail, the oncoming train wreck.  To hell with reasoning, their minds are already made up.  

[SoggyFox]

Well yes - but there are plenty of parents out there that doesn't seem to try at all.  Its the school's fault, or the government's fault, or even their church's fault - anyone but them.

[Tabby]

 I do not want to control my kids. If you knew them you would know that even now, at 3 0 and 1 0, it is damn near impossible! I was talking more about making sure what they watch on TV is safe; no words I would be embarrassed to hear them say in church or something. I don't want them watching anything really scary, although my daughter (3 0) freaking loves Silent Hill and stuff like that. Basically, if and when they get online, we will be monitoring what they do and what they can see. I would have loved to have parents that cared, mine were too busy being drunk or on drugs and beating each other to care what the we did. Exactly why I was married and moved out by 17, I couldnt wait to leave, it ended up being a mistake and I was divorced by 19, but I thought it was right and with no guidance... I try not to be overprotective, but sometimes it is hard.

 In short (LOL), while I want my children to be who they are, I don't want them to not have been taught or steered towards what my husband and I believe is right. You have to take responsibility for your own children, otherwise you should not be allowed to have them.

 Oh, and I am NOT looking forward to their teenage years. They are really strong willed now, I cant imagine how fucking bad that's going to be.

[deelink]

I was going to get lunch, exactly 30 minutes ago, walking rather slowly since I am nursing a hangover from hell. And outside an electronics store, a child was screaming something unintelligable while the father, who was alone, and was trying to "reason" with him. Look, I don't have kids, but I know from my own upbrining what works. Pick the kid up, tell him he is in public and is making a damn fool of himself and go about YOUR business. This kid had stalled his own father's shedule, over what? I don't even know, all I know is, I went inside the arcade, where the screaming echoed and bounced straight into my brain, I grabbed my lunch, talked to a lady I know at the supermarket, over the screams of this child. And after 15 min, it was still going. And the father STILL trying to "reason" with him.

What on earth? What would you guys have done? I mean, I said what I would've done, since how on earth can you reason with a 3 year old? It doesn't work, the kid doesn't get it.
Bah.

And I work in a comic store, with lots of neat toys, and I have had 8 and 9 year olds come up to me, asking for Predator, Robocop and Alien toys. I ask "You like them because they look cool huh?" and I always get this scary blank face that says "Yeah, and I like the movies too". WTF?
Oh and scariest of it all.. a woman coming in with a cute daughter dressed in pink, she was exclaiming over our Tinklebelle statues, and she bought 3. I turned to the little girl and said "Oh wow you are so lucky!" and the little girl picked up a giant Chucky doll, and said "This is for me, those are for my mum"
The mother nodded and said "I love Tinkerbelle, I collect them. She collects Chucky"

WTF!? I am not making this stuff up!!!

[SoggyFox]

I believe you - there is so much concern now that you could get into trouble for child abuse - for things that when I was little, were acceptable punishments.  Reasoning doesn't work when the child is throwing a fit - a firm 'later', or even an ultimatum, that the child knows will be enforced...that's what you have to do.

[Paden]

I've been known to apologize to the people in the area and take a screamer home after thanking her for humiliating me, without getting my purchase. When we got home, she was put upon the couch and told not to move off of it for half an hour. No books, toys or tv. Just sit. Which she did. She knew that a swat upon the butt was coming if she didn't mind me. She understood such things at that age, though. I then had my father babysit while I went back to the store and completed my business. These were rare happenings, though.

Her brother on the other hand, doesn't act up in stores. He smiles and chatters at people all around him. If he can't have something, it's put back upon the shelf and left there, and he doesn't raise a fuss. It's here at home that he throws his tantrums, and if they're bad enough, they earn him a swift swat upon the butt (because time outs don't work) after three chances to stop. He is then ignored until he comes up and apologizes, which he hates being ignored.

Two different children, two different ways of handling things. Both work. But throwing tantrums in public has never been, and will never be, allowed. Had I done the same, my mother would have laid me out flat on my ass and no one would have blinked an eye. I then would have been deposited in the back seat of the car with the door locked while she went back in to finish her shopping. There are some things you just don't allow a kid to do in public and tantrums and nose picking are both on that list.

[cookiepirate]

Kids need bounderies and need to learn how far they can take things.  It's up to the parent to decide what that limit is.  Having said that, any child of mine that EVER screamed at me in public, would have only done it once.  I taught mine from the start, you embarass me in public, I'm gonna embarass you 10 times more.  It took only one time doing that for them to not try something again (example:  Kiddies thought it would be fun to go in and out the automatic doors while I was at the check out, getting in everyone's way.  I excused myself politely from the cashier, walked over to them, grabbed each of them, and loudly told them to sit their asses down on the floor by the window and not move a muscle.  Then went back and finished up with the checkout.  When I was done, made them apologize to the cashier for causing the interruption to her job.). 

My oldest was usually the ringleader, so the younger offspring learned by osmosis on what is allowed/not allowed.   He was always trying to get her to do the same things, so she would get in trouble too.   Depending on what they tried, my response would vary, but my all time favorite was to smile real nice, hold their upper arm, lean down, then tell them while ever so slightly squeezing their upper arm, if they didn't stop whatever they were doing, I was taking them to the car and tearing their asses up.  And smile the whole time, so as not to offend all those "let the kids say and do whatever they want" parents.  Luckily, and knock wood 3 times, neither of my kids ever had to be spanked more than a pop or two on the butt, and even then I could count the times on one hand.  The threat of what could happen was enough to keep them inline.  But it starts early, as babies , by teaching them NO means NO, not maybe.

[Devilfish]

I was going to get lunch, exactly 30 minutes ago, walking rather slowly since I am nursing a hangover from hell. And outside an electronics store, a child was screaming something unintelligable while the father, who was alone, and was trying to "reason" with him. Look, I don't have kids, but I know from my own upbrining what works. Pick the kid up, tell him he is in public and is making a damn fool of himself and go about YOUR business. This kid had stalled his own father's shedule, over what? I don't even know, all I know is, I went inside the arcade, where the screaming echoed and bounced straight into my brain, I grabbed my lunch, talked to a lady I know at the supermarket, over the screams of this child. And after 15 min, it was still going. And the father STILL trying to "reason" with him.

Ugh, that's just wrong. My cousin does that and the whole family hates her for it. She had two of the sweetest girls you can imagine and she's spoiling them rotten by constantly giving in to their every whim. Supermarket runs with those two are nightmares.

- CANDY!!!
- Okay, do you want hard candy or soft?
- I WANT CANDY NOW!! CANDY!!!!
- Okay, point to the one you want? This one?
- NO!! I WANT COOKIES!!
- Okay, put the candy back and...
- NO!!! CANDY AND COOKIES!!!
- Okay, pick the cookies you want...

And so on and so forth every fracking time. She's so scared that they'll stop loving her or something that she can't put her foot down and put and end to the madness. The thing is, when I babysit them there's none of that crap. They'll eat what I tell them to eat, get dressed for bed and go to sleep when I tell them to, no matter how much screaming, hair-pulling and tantrums are involved. And they adore me. Kids love discipline. They can't handle choices, they want someone to tell them what to do. "Eat your carrots" works a lot better than "Well, what would you like to eat?" What the hell do they know?
My mother was a lady that took no crap from her kids, but my brother was a nightmare. He screamed all the time in public, threw groceries at shoppers, kicked my mom, all that crap we all hate to see. And it wasn't because my mom was being a pussy about it. But there was just something wrong with that kid. He didn't care whether the attention he got was positive or negative, as long as he got attention. A lecture was as good as a hug. Impossible to deal with. So I sometimes sympathise when I see parents who really take no crap from their kids but get stared at angrily anyway. Sometimes theer's just nothing you can do to stop a kid from making an arse out of everyone involved.

[Tabby]

 So far, knock on wood, all I have to say to my daughter is "Do you want to go back home?" and she straightens up. She knows if I have to leave where I am, to bring her back here she is going to get it. Time out for her is worse than a spanking, which it was for me too. You can pop my bottom and it hurts for a minute, but I can still go do what I want. You take my toys or put my nose in the corner and it gets pretty damn boring! She always apologizes for acting "ugly" and gives us hugs and kisses. My son is a different matter, he is only 1 so you can't really talk it out with him. Usually a bottle or rattle works with him.

  As far as asking them what they want: when it comes to clothes, yeah I will ask Emma what she wants to wear. Its just clothes, if it is appropriate for the weather then I have no problems. As far as food, I cook three times a day, whatever I cook will be eaten or you will wait until the next meal is cooked. If you eat all your food you can have a snack for dessert, if you want. There is no discussion. I pretty much know what they like and what they don't by now, so if I know for a fact you love spaghetti, but you just didn't want it today and you throw a fit saying you hate spaghetti, then you will go hungry until the morning, or finish your food. This day in age, we cant afford to waste food by cooking 17 different meals a day.

[Ry]

I agree Devilfish.
Especially with kids who misbehave no matter what.
You never know if they have some kind of mental problem or behavioral troubles, so I try not to judge too much unless it's quite obvious they're just spoiled brats.
My older son, Cam, was a difficult child. There were a couple times I had to leave full grocery carts and carry him from the store. I'm sorry, but I don't expect the other shoppers to listen to his screaming while I try to prove a point.
I can prove it just as well in private, and, personally, I believe that's where it should be done.
I can't stand seeing parents who discipline their kids in public. It's kinda stupid to embarrass the poor kid in front of the world. How will that make him any better in behavior? It is just a quick fix, too, because the poor tyke will end up very angry over the fact mum and dad helped make him look like a fool by letting the world see their personal business. Take your kid in the restroom or something, don't berate and belittle the guy in front of the whole mall. That's wrong.

I give my ten year old basically all the rights to decide for himself what he wants. I just don't always allow his decision. There's a difference there from deciding for him. He's smart and he makes the right choices most of the time on his own, I see no reason not to allow him to have his own personality. He wears what he wants and he's got long hair, as long as he keeps it brished and washed I'm fine with it. It's terrible to me to see kids shoved into clothes their parents prefer and wearing haircuts mommy picked out. It's the only way a kids really has to be himself and I think It's wrong to take it away from them.